ims for the lands described in the
title, and that if the court establishes the grant to Gomez it shall be
confirmed to McGarrahan. No evidence that he is the assignee of Gomez
is, I think, required by the bill, which assumes that fact instead of
submitting it to the court. If the claim is established, it is provided
in substance that all lands part of said grant which have been conveyed
by the Government or are in the occupancy of actual settlers, or "upon
which there are any smelting or reduction works, or the lands claimed
in connection with such reduction or smelting works," shall be excepted
from the patent which the Secretary of the Interior is directed to issue
to McGarrahan. By this provision the title of the New Idria Mining
Company, which has long contested with McGarrahan the title to a large
part of this property, is established and that company is relieved from
any responsibility to account for the profits made in mining. On the
other hand, the United States waives all benefit of judicial proceedings
which have resulted in its favor and gives Mr. McGarrahan an opportunity
_de novo_ to try all such questions; and the decision, if in his favor,
is not only to restore to him all the lands yet undisposed of, but the
United States assumes to pay him the value of the lands appropriated by
others and of their use for all these years and to account to him for
all profits that have been made by the New Idria Mining Company or
anyone else in quicksilver or other mining.

This seems to me to be wholly inadmissible. The amount involved must be
enormously large, though at present incapable of any accurate estimate.
If the title of the New Idria Company has been established by final
decrees of court placing that title beyond question and that company
beyond any call to respond for use and profits, why should the
Government of the United States, waiving in its behalf these decrees,
which would protect it also, assume a responsibility to account for the
value of the lands and for their use and for the net value of minerals
extracted by that company or others? It will be noticed in the quotation
I have made from the act that this company is allowed to take all the
land it may claim, but at the expense of the United States, not of
Mr. McGarrahan.

The bill is so framed as to give full protection to the New Idria Mining
Company to the full extent of its largest claim, while throwing upon the
United States a responsibility wh